Kininvie Distillery — Speyside Single Malt Whisky

Kininvie Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery located near Dufftown, Speyside, Scotland. It was founded in 1990 and is currently owned by William Grant & Sons. Unlike most distilleries, Kininvie was built purely as a still house on the grounds of the neighbouring Balvenie distillery, and for over two decades its malt was reserved almost exclusively for blending rather than being sold as a single malt in its own right.

History

Kininvie was constructed by William Grant & Sons and began production on 4 July 1990. It was built to relieve pressure on Glenfiddich and The Balvenie, whose spirit was increasingly needed for their own growing single malt brands, by supplying additional fillings for the company's blends. To keep costs and footprint minimal, Kininvie was not built as a fully independent distillery: it consists mainly of a still house with computer-controlled distillation, while liquid from mashing is piped in from Balvenie's mash tun and washbacks around 200 metres away. The distillery draws its water from the Conval Hills and has historically run around the clock to meet demand from its parent company's blends, most notably Grant's, Clan MacGregor and, in more recent years, Monkey Shoulder. Kininvie's own single malt stayed almost entirely out of view until 2013, when William Grant & Sons released a limited 23-year-old bottling, distilled in 1990, initially for the Taiwanese market. Further limited-edition age statements followed, including a 17-year-old released more widely from 2015 and rare older expressions such as a 25-year-old "First Drops" bottling from a single cask filled on the distillery's first days of production.

Quick Facts

• Region: Speyside
• Founded: 1990
• Owner: William Grant & Sons
• Status: Active
• Stills: 3 wash stills, 6 spirit stills

Core Range

Kininvie does not maintain a conventional retail core range; the distillery's output is used predominantly in William Grant & Sons blends and blended malts, including Grant's, Clan MacGregor and Monkey Shoulder. Standalone Kininvie single malt appears only as occasional limited releases, most notably a 17 Year Old (matured predominantly in ex-bourbon barrels with a smaller proportion of sherry casks, bottled in 35cl format) and a 23 Year Old, along with rarer older single-cask editions such as the 25-year-old "First Drops."